The long-running rivalry between the two services — public versus private — has been settled by COVID-19. Why would anyone risk the dangers and uncertainty of free enterprise when they could have the safety and security of a large and ever-expanding government?

Doctors, nurses and other “front-line” forces on the public payroll have been loudly and justifiably lauded for enduring daily risks to their health, and even life itself, to do their jobs. On the other side of the equation, grocery clerks, delivery people and fast-food workers confront the same dangers for less money and none of the security.

It used to be you didn’t get paid as much to work for the government, but you had fixed hours and knew your job was safe. That gap has been narrowing for quite a while. As economist Jack Mintz noted Wednesday in the Financial Post, public-sector pay in 2019 was higher ($28 per hour versus $21 per hour on average), the benefits better and the pension more secure. While those private employers that still offer pensions have moved overwhelmingly toward defined contribution plans in which the eventual payout is far from certain, more than 80 per cent of public employees have plans with defined payments guaranteed by the government, which means by the taxpayer. If there’s a war, a financial crash or a pandemic there’s nothing to worry about; private plans may struggle to meet their obligations but the government (meaning the taxpayer) never runs out of money.

Of the millions of Canadians put out of work by the pandemic, either permanently or temporarily, almost all (Mintz says 96 per cent) work (or worked) for private employers. Thousands of businesses have closed, but public employment soldiers on. Retail workers, restaurant staff, corporate employees, sidelined salespeople … an entire army of working stiffs have no way of knowing if they’ll have a job to return to, but the only way a government paycheque will be halted is if Ottawa’s disastrously inept Phoenix payroll system continues to malfunction.

A man wearing a protective face mask passes a boarded up restaurant during the global outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Toronto on April 6, 2020.Reuters

The bottom line is that the cachet that once went with private employment has gone the way of the Dodo bird, which coincidentally never had a government to protect it either. Public pay is better, the benefits top-of-line, it’s almost impossible to be fired, you know the date you can retire, and the amount you’ll be paid. If you don’t get along with your manager you can call the union and grieve 13 ways from Sunday. You don’t have to worry about the business going under, and can live in confidence that terror-stricken politicians will opt to buy peace at contract time, rather than challenge the latest set of demands. It wasn’t until COVID-19 shut schools that Ontario’s teachers, among Canada’s best paid, halted a co-ordinated disruption campaign and accepted a new and improved contract, their ability to complicate the lives of parents having been temporarily nullified.

The private sector once held certain attractions that mitigated the drawbacks. Innovation, independence, less regimentation, the excitement of designing, producing or marketing products that caught the public fancy. It could offer greater flexibility, the ability to jump from job to job, to demonstrate valuable skills and earn the rewards that came with it. A lot of people just plain yearn to be their own boss, to start their own business.

How much of that passion do you suppose has been crushed by the awareness that some weird, random, unpredictable event — say a virus apparently caused by bats — can come along and close your shop or steal your job? How many small business owners will want to try again? The risk is all yours, the rewards ephemeral. Size, as the virus has demonstrated, is no guarantee of safety. Canada’s airlines may survive only with Ottawa’s support and in much more modest circumstances. Air Canada may only get through it thanks to the federal wage subsidy to tens of thousands of idled workers. Chief executive Calin Rovinescu expects recovery will take three years, while “both the overall industry and our airline will be considerably smaller.” The oil business, Canada’s greatest exporter, has been told to expect significant help only if it jumps through additional environmental hoops, no matter that hundreds of thousands of jobs are at risk. Any company requiring smooth and reliable border access now knows an outburst of political opportunism could put the future in jeopardy at the whim of the White House.

Is it worth it? To the independent-minded, those who can’t imagine being employed by anyone but themselves, or who have big ideas and equivalent drive, the allure will always be there, even if success could mean being branded “the 1%” by enraged leftists and bombarded with demands to pay “your fair share.” Much as it might like to, even Ottawa can’t employ everybody, so somebody will still have to invent stuff, build it and sell it so the government can tax it to pay its employees.

But from a practical point of view, it no longer makes much sense to labour for some profit-generating enterprise that fuels the economy and contributes to prosperity, when you could be safe and secure on the public payroll, protected from plague, pestilence or pandemic. It’s too dangerous. In Canada, real capitalism means working for the government. All the cool kids do.

Bill Buford spoke about moving to Lyon with his family for a year to write Dirt, and then staying five, about their lives now in New York, and the future ...

This Week's Flyers

Comments

Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. Comments may take up to an hour for moderation before appearing on the site. We ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. We have enabled email notifications—you will now receive an email if you receive a reply to your comment, there is an update to a comment thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our community guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings.